


Rebirth

by ashcat



Category: White Collar
Genre: F/M, Masturbation, Merry Month of Masturbation Challenge, Prison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-03
Updated: 2010-05-03
Packaged: 2017-10-09 06:44:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/84187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashcat/pseuds/ashcat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kate seeks solace in her memories and finds a way to help save Neal from his imprisonment of the soul.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rebirth

**Author's Note:**

> For asimaiyat's birthday (and it is inspired by her [June/Byron](http://asimaiyat.livejournal.com/138832.html#cutid1) fic) and it is my MMOM fill for day 2! I owe a huge debt to afiawri for her handholding and beta and thanks to elrhiarhodan for her help with some details about prison :)
> 
> I realize that a lot of people don't like Kate, and there is good reason to if she is evil. However, I maintain that Kate had to have loved Neal at some point, to justify his devotion to her in canon!

Before Neal's trial, she believed that this separation from him was temporary. She held onto the hope that things would soon be changing for the better. But after Neal was transferred to the maximum security facility where he'd serve out his sentence, the reality of four years settled in. Four years where each weekly visit requires both of them to endure degrading searches for the privilege to sit, forever separated, sharing red-eyed confessions and brave smiles. The feeling of permanence that this new existence tool on colors every scant minute that they spend together, it increases her feelings of frustration and futility while enduring the process of "visitation".

Yet, now Kate is home again after another Sunday visit. In the tiny loft she and Neal had once thought was spacious, back when all they had was their love and his talented hands. Back when that had seemed like all they would need to see their plans for the future realized. Kate never thought it'd come to this. She had believed so fully in Neal, in his skill and his clever mind, that she never once let herself consider that he could be caught. She never considered the possibility that once caught, he'd be imprisoned. She knows that was naive now. They had been courting disaster, yet neither realized it until it had already befallen them. Kate feels that here, in the aftermath of Peter Burke taking everything from her - from _them_, she must put away her childish desires and become the adult she had only been playing at before. She has had to grow up fast, because suddenly it is she who has to be strong for Neal, to take up his mantle of protection and steadiness. She who has to struggle to keep the fear and longing from her face, keep the loneliness from her eyes, as she sits across from him and watches all that she loves about him fade.

Kate can't help but be horrified as she sees Neal's essence, the spark that always lit his eyes, dim every week. He loses weight, his cheeks hollow even as his arms become more defined, his shoulders filling out his ugly orange uniform a bit more broadly. The Neal across the barrier is no longer loquacious; some visits he barely says more than ten or twelve words. A Neal whose voice is taking on an edge of desperation when he does talk, bitterness creeping in where there had only been plans for the future before. She longs for his words the most, they at least were still his to give despite all his other options having been taken away. It is killing her seeing him losing himself right before her eyes. She wanted him to be able to come out of this unchanged, she wanted them to be able to pick up their life, their love, the same as it was _before_.

When Peter captured Neal, they had just cleared customs at JFK. She was taken in for questioning at the same time they had arrested Neal, but Mozzie had been able to get Neal's checked bag along with hers that night. So she had had some of Neal's things, clothes that still held his scent. She had rationed them, letting herself have the comfort of his smell engulfing her until finally the clothes had lost all hints of him. Even then, she hadn't been able to give them up. Now, she always makes sure to have one of his silky soft cotton undershirts covering the top half of her body pillow. Then she can pretend to be resting her cheek on his chest as she falls asleep. At least the texture is the same, even if bulk and warmth aren't, even if it's not gently rocking her with each breath.

She needs a way to feel close to him now. Close to _her_ Neal, whose brightly shining eyes and velvety smooth words had captured her heart years ago. Kate finally comes upon the idea that she could make love to herself in Neal's place. He has always loved her body. He spent hours worshiping it when he was free. But she hasn't felt his hands on her in close to two years now. At least when she was visiting him at Metropolitan, where he was held pre-trial, she could see him without a wall of plexiglass separating them. They had shared furtive brushes of fingertips, followed by intimate looks under the bored gaze of guards.

Neal had still been himself. His eyes alive and hopeful as he told her over and over that he would be free before she knews it, that the FBI can't convict him on such circumstantial evidence. Neal had been wrong, and sometimes she wonders if maybe he hadn't been wrong about a lot of other things as well.

She doesn't dwell on that thought; she wants to feel like her brilliant, debonair lover is here, instead of miles away locked in a cage. She raids the few things of his that she had been able to save from the criminal investigation. She and Mozzie had disposed of most of their tools and materials, but she hadn't been able to part with Neal's set of long handled kolinsky sable brushes. She remembered when Neal had bought them, how happy he was as he painted his first forgeries, copying lesser known works as fast as Mozzie could broker the deals.

Kate lets herself remember that time in Italy when she posed nude for Neal. She feels the stirrings of passion in her belly as she thinks of the the intense, intimate pleasure, she felt as she sat there, confident in her nudity before him. Neal's intent look of concentration, the smell of the oil paint, mixing with the feeling of his eyes as he stared at her, her body reduced to the parts of it's sum as he studied each one. They had had to leave that painting of her behind in Florence when the Uffizi job fell through, but she has her memories. The snapshots of him are burned into her mind: Neal standing there in his faded jeans and paint splattered white t-shirt, concentration etched in his features as he worked to render her on canvass; the play of muscles down his neck as he drank from his bottled water, the flexing of his deliciously defined arms, his wirey muscles apparent with every stroke.

Kate loves Neal's arms, his hands; they always felt so strong and safe while holding her, protecting her from the world. They would also shake with passion when he was making love to her, supporting himself above her, afraid to hurt her by lowering his full weight upon her. Neal was always worried about her comfort, her pleasure, no matter the situation. And pleasure is what she feels now, awash in memories of them making love on the divan that he had posed her on. The memory of the how full and loved she felt as he thrust his hard cock into her sends her reaching up to tease her nipples, fingers pinching and rolling until they form hard nubs.

She picks up the fan brush and begins to trace it over her lips, down her throat. The wide and sparse bristles feel like a lover's breath, her skin tingling with the ghosts of kisses in its wake as she works it over her collarbone, down the trail that Neal would always mouth before flitting around first one nipple then the other. The pleasure makes her gasp, makes her remember the feel of Neal's breath between each tender kiss he'd bestow upon both nubs before he'd latch on and suck, tongue gently teasing the sensitive points.

As she continues to graze the red bristles across her nipples, they begin to tighten, to feel hot and sensitive. She thinks about Neal's hand on the brush, guiding it over her now. How as he painted he had held each brush with determination, purpose, so sure of every stroke on the canvass as he rendered her likeness in their small stuffy rooms in Florence. He would caress her body the same way, every touch and action done with conviction, reverence. Neal believed she was more beautiful than any man made work of art.

Neal's primer brush is next. It's thick, dense bristles and wide span feel more like the hands of a lover on her. Like it is an extension of Neal himself come to stroke up her sides, to brush the sensitive curve under her breasts. That he is painting the trail from her stomach down to her closely cropped pubic hair. She sweeps it through her hair, remembering how Neal had liked to rub and play with it, how he'd enjoyed shaving her. Aftewards, he was always careful to cover every inch of newly bared, sensitive skin with kisses and licks, driving her crazy with lust until she was begging him to give her relief.

She reaches down and spreads her folds, tries rubbing the brush across her clit, letting the fine bristles dance along it. She squirms as it sends little shocks of pleasure up her spine. However, it's more of a tease than any substainail mounting of pleasure, the bristles are too fine to create any friction. Kate hastily flips the brush around, and lets the short, thick handle press against her. She rubs it lightly over her clit, finally gaining the pressure she needed.

It reminds her of when Neal would tease her, pressing the heel of his hand against her sex, inviting her to thrust against his hand if she wanted any release. He would do this while he whispered all manner of filthy things, nibbling and licking on her sensitive ear lobe. His actions only excited her more. This was his version of model preparation for her. He would always cruelly pull away before she could orgasm. He'd give her a wink and one of his real smiles before returning to painting, saying that having her flushed and needy only added to the allure of the piece in progress. She had hated him leaving her hanging like that, but in the end she had had to agree with him as far as the final product. Neal always did know his art.

The brush handle isn't enough as it rubs over her clit, so Kate ends up running the handle down her slit to her entrance. She's already so wet that it slips right in, and she starts angling it around inside of her, seeking her gspot. She loves being stimulated there, doesn't even mind the awkward "have to pee" feeling she gets when she starts rubbing it, coaxing it into firmness. Neal nearly always found it on the first crook of his fingers indoe if her, teasing it into hardness and pressing into it as his mouth worked on tounging her. She mercilessly works the hard handle against the almond shaped nub inside of her as her other hand travels down to take up where the brush handle left off, fingers flat against her clit as she forces it to shift beneath them.

Kate can feel the sweat trickling down between her breasts as she continues her frantic movements. She closes her eyes, and pretends the rivulets are Neal's tongue running across her body. Teasing her as she worked herself hard for him. She pictures him sitting back, watching this performance, him hard and needy; turned on by her perversion with his favorite set of brushes.

The thought of his eyes, roving over her as she touches herself, the lust she knows that'd darken them. The way his lips would part, breath quickening as he slipped one slender hand down into his pants, palming his firm, needy cock. That's the thought that brings her off as she gives one final rough rub of her clit and pushes the brush all the way in, feeling her fluttering walls trying to grip it even as it doesn't come close to filling her. It doesn't feel anything like the hot, hard length of Neal's cock inside of her when they make love.

As Kate lays there in the aftermath of her self pleasure, she thinks about how Neal wasn't pleased with his painting of her. That though he had been unhappy with it, she had thought it was quite stunning, even if it was a bit inaccurate and embarrassing. Neal had kindly white washed any of her physical flaws, while accentuating all of her best qualities, even hinting at some of the intangible ones with the tilt of her head, the positioning of a hand. He had told her that he'd painted this to try to show her how beautiful she was in his eyes, but what came out of this experiment was only a pale shade compared to how he truly saw her.

Kate has a spark of inspiration; she knows how she can save her Neal. She would remind him of how exquisite _he_ is and always has been to her.

She rises and cleans herself and the brushes quickly. Neal would perhaps enjoy watching her play with them, but not if she hadn't cared for them properly after. Kate has to dig in several boxes before she finally finds the papyrus stationary. It's the set he'd bought for her in Alexandria, the beige sheets are decorated with the symbol for rebirth and life intertwined with intricate scroll work framing the borders.

She sits down and starts composing on it, paper Neal knows that she found too special to actually use. She will share with Neal all of their history from her eyes, she will paint for him, in words, how much she loves him, even now despite all that's happened. She will spark in him the will to resist the erosion of his soul by reminding him of what he is fighting for, of what will be waiting for him once he is free again.


End file.
